EasyShe told me she was sorry but my life was easy.Not an apology but a preface.There’s an enormous shame in being told your lifeis easy, because it means the things you lovearen’t earned, and it makes crying an indulgent,pathetic thing, like buying clothes when someoneyou love dies.My mother later asked me to forgive her.
SwimmingIn my fantasy I am at ease. I treat my desireslike a person passing on the street: withcompassion and manners and somesuspicion.In my fantasy I swim and eat (two things I’venever been able to do).
The Big FearI could become aggressive, or even strong. I couldbecome comfortable. I could learn or forget. Icould lose the way I say or sing things. So maybeno one will say they knew me, or at least neverknew who I thought I might become. Maybe noone will say they recognize me.
Baby ToothI lost my last baby tooth on a sailboat.I didn’t see it drop in the water, or fall out ofsomeone’s hands. I put it in a deep cupholder already filled with a cigarette butt andsand. When I looked again it was gone, and itmust have fallen out on the ocean. In thenext weeks I liked to imagine it as a hermitcrab’s shell, but soon I was simply terrifiedthat it would wash ashore and bite someretired woman’s foot or choke a turtle.
Let the Witch OutOur mother used to tell us stories aboutwhen her name was different and she was awaitress. She had loved her job. She’d say thespools of windows in her friend’s café madeher feel like she worked outside.When we went to visit the restaurant, artstudents had just had a field trip through thecity, leaving little notes and sketches insidedrainpipes, under windshield wipers, and onwindowsills. I read our note as our motherwas in the bathroom. I threw it away beforeshe came back.
LochWhen my grandfather died, I expected someshift in the weather or animal life around thewater. I thought the one hobbled cranewould suddenly be flying, or the gulls wouldbe an octave higher or lower.But it wasn’t different. The two blues werethe same, and the wind didn’t die down.Maybe the reflection was deeper. Barely.
Nude FigureIn my third art class a nude figure came topose for the students. Her name wasSimone.She had a backpack that crinkled hugely, likeit was full of bags of potato chips.She was beautiful, but she had horrible,gnarled teeth and I imagine she knew howthey looked. She walked around the circle ofeasels after class, humming to herself as shesaw the vague women posing on thecanvases.
AfterschoolIn second grade, a girl with three pigtails toldme that all the pets that ran away wererounded up and burned on the beach for asummer bonfire party, and all the adultsknew about it.The next day, she apologized, saying she hadbeen wrong. It turned out, the pets wereground up and mixed with gunpowder, thenpacked into fireworks.She now has a tattoo of a dolphin on her leg.
WafersMy younger brother somehow convinced thechurch higher-ups that he was allergic totheir brand of communion wafer. Theyreceived them in nondescript boxes with noingredient labels. He had them believing theycontained traces of some grain which closedhis throat up in a matter of seconds.He’d sit in the back pew as the rest of thefamily trudged up without him. When we satback down, he’d tell our mother not to kisshim on the cheek or his forehead, or else hemight collapse and embarrass us in front ofthe O’Malleys.
SignsMy first boyfriend nailed signs to his ceiling—street signs, stop signs, some license plates.At first I was worried that he might cause anaccident, or make some confused old coupleget lost while visiting our town.But the news never reported anyone beinghit at the intersection with the missing stopsign. And he gave directions to old people allthe time, so he said it evened out.Anytime I’m speeding, I remember the night Ijolted awake when the 60mph sign fell to thefloor, and he screamed “shush!” in his sleep.
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